• An eccentric chief with a troubled marriage is expected to make someone's day
Image: MERCY WAIRIMU/SHARON MWENDE
A senior chief of Mlafwahale in Bungoma, let us all call him Patolamayo Lumuli, banged his head on the mud wall of his dark bedroom yet again. This time, an unfortunate louse loitering the night suffered sudden death.
He could feel it exactly as it died between his grey-haired head and the rugged wall. Something mashy and tiny stuck on his temple. His bony index finger naturally moved to savour it. He wiped it slowly. In that pitch darkness of this moonless month of March, last week, this chief enjoyed this tiny little act of cleanliness.
The last drunkard of the village had already crossed the brook by the old sub-chief's homestead. His regular ballad about slim women and sugarcane whisky as heavens sent the mongrels barking.
It is this ruckus that had jolted the old Lumuli to unmount from his wife's chest and waken. To be sincere, it is only Lumuli in the whole of Kenya who sleeps with a nipple in his mouth since he was born. His wife had to give in to this ritual to avoid getting a co-wife.
Last Friday, the drunkard had fought hard with his cowardice and eventually faded into the night. He had most probably evaded the bridge of muggings. It is an old bridge since the time of Cain and Abel. Drunkards in this part of Kenya believe deeply it is these biblical brothers who made it – this bridge of an ancient eucalyptus stem.
Whichever the case, the chief’s mongrels had found silence admirable again after the echoes of the late drunkard receded across the bridge. They had even resumed mating weakly. Like all animals, except us, they did it in sweet silence.
Msakhulu Lumuli could not find his sleep again; at least not immediately. He lifted his 60-year-old body. He used his creaky left elbow as a prop. He peered into the dark, black night at his wife, who had urinated yet again.
Her new fistula issues had now become a subject of great secrecy between the two aged villagers. It had brought juice back to their old marriage full of feuds, sorcery and counter-sorcery. Think of it this way. Lumuli and his wife were enjoying a new ceasefire based on urine or lack of ability to control it.
Lumuli imagined the day that had died. Friday 11.03.2022. He reconstructed it like a narrative of sorts. He didn't dwell on the beginning of the day at the office and his new intern.
You see, he is about to retire and the government has seconded a Dotcom to understudy him. They get along fine because he has already "treated" him using the small witchcraft made using the toe of an armadillo.
The “network” of the young man was now tuned to the English Premier League forever, and eternal phone loans from digital shylocks. Thoughts of this tiny but peaceful triumph made Lumuli fart with approval then smile at the darkness.
****
The chief’s restless mind shifted to the major event of 11.03.2022. At 3.24pm, a case had come before him. As he smoked enjaka behind the lantana hedge, ringing the dilapidated government latrine, his 106kg secretary had come for him.
He reluctantly put off the roll and hid it again in a termite crack near the latrine’s entrance. Instead of walking, he chose to skip like a calf after milking time is over.
Lumuli cart-wheeled at one point. Thousands of wananchi queuing since sunrise for government service ululated at his gymnastics. He then ironed his creased sub-chief uniform of khaki with his sweaty palms before entering his office erect.
In the office stood a toddler of about four years with a sugarcane stick thrice his height. Next to him sat his sorceress with her sister, who kept rejecting his quest for horizontal gymnastics.
He greeted all with his black stick of authority. The wand later found its resting place between his swollen crotch. He made political jokes at the tot and seized the sugarcane, chewing it with shut eyes.
The case was stated. It was as simple as this village without any radios or Internet.
The Administration Police called Murefu had captured his in-law without an anti-corona mask. She had attempted to run fast down a hill. Corporal Murefu had somersaulted above her and hugged her as she descended the hill without brakes.
He had carried the chief’s shemeji like a bundle of sugarcane to the chief’s camp, wailing militant tunes while at it. Now notorious Murefu stood nearby, waiting for the “phone call” that will change his fortunes at least for the evening. His butt reclined on the national flag post, as he waited.
“A bond from one of this lawbreaker’s relatives would make my Friday lit!” he fantasised with glee, his tall body shivering like sugarcanes in the wind.
The chief had heard about the lifting of the ban on mandatory masking made by the Health CS. He owned the only phone in this corner of our calm nation.
He walked to the feared Murefu and whispered a long paragraph into his ears. It is at that point that Murefu started crying and drama. No one has calmed him to this very day. No one will. No one wishes to. His cop cry is audible even here in Nairobi.